The Westchester County town of Greenburgh, a sprawling municipality that has a significant Jewish population, is embroiled in a controversy over anti-Semitic slurs by a local fire chief against the town supervisor, who is Jewish.

Anthony LoGiudice, the chief of the Fairview Fire District, is accused of using the slur against the supervisor, Paul J. Feiner, in conversations with other firefighters. The three fire districts in Greenburgh are independent of town government, and Mr. Feiner said the chief, among other things, was not pleased with Mr. Feiner’s proposal to consolidate two of the districts.

“I feel hurt, sad, offended,” Mr. Feiner, a Democrat first elected town supervisor in 1991, said in an email. “I am the first Jewish town supervisor Greenburgh has had. And up till this incident, I never felt that there was even an ounce of anti-Semitism in the town.”

On Friday afternoon, Mr. LoGiudice stopped off at Mr. Feiner’s office, told Mr. Feiner he was sorry and asked him to read a letter of apology for “my careless and hurtful words.” In the letter, Mr. LoGiudice said that when he saw his choice of language repeated in a local newspaper and realized that friends and neighbors “of the Jewish faith were reading those words, I was horrified.”

“I understand that words once spoken are not easily forgotten by those they harm,” he wrote. “I wish to apologize to you and to the entire community. Using a slur to express anger is never appropriate in any context, even if uttered privately.”

Mr. Feiner called the apology a positive step but an insufficient one. He urged that the chief visit the Holocaust museum in Lower Manhattan, accompanied by a Holocaust survivor, “so he will have a better appreciation of why so many people are distressed by his remarks.”

Greenburgh, which includes six independent villages, has a population of just under 90,000; about 10 percent of its residents are Jewish, according to Mr. Feiner.

But Evan R. Bernstein, the New York regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, criticized the board’s statement, saying it “appears to be an attempt to excuse the vulgar anti-Semitic remarks by attributing them to a political disagreement.”

“The statement from the Board of Fire Commissioners,” Mr. Bernstein said, “suggests that these kind of crude comments are acceptable in the Fairview Fire Department, and raises questions about whether the problem is bigger than Chief LoGiudice.”

The offensive remarks emerged in connection with an age-discrimination lawsuit brought by a volunteer firefighter, David Hecht, 45, who was trying to get a paid position in the Fairview force and thought he had been passed over for a less experienced 19-year-old.

Jonathan Lovett, Mr. Hecht’s lawyer, said that in pretrial proceedings he deposed several former and current firefighters and, among other questions, asked them whether Chief LoGiudice had ever made derogatory remarks about Mr. Feiner. (Though Mr. Hecht had a Jewish grandmother, he is not Jewish, according to his lawyer.)

One retired firefighter, Mr. Lovett said, recalled that Mr. LoGiudice had often used anti-Semitic slurs against Mr. Feiner over many years. Deputy Chief Howard Reiss, who is Jewish, said he had also heard Chief LoGiudice utter such remarks.

Mr. LoGiudice did not return messages left on his voice mail. He has been chief for roughly five years, according to Mr. Feiner, and a paid firefighter for about 30 years.

Commanding a force of 45 professionals and 18 volunteers divided between two fire stations, Mr. LoGiudice earns about $220,000 annually, which Mr. Feiner noted was far more than the $140,000 he earned and more than the salary of the New York City fire commissioner, who commands a force of over 11,000 firefighters and is paid $205,180.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Anti-Semitic Slur by a Westchester Fire Chief Stirs Controversy. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe